Finished Preliminary task - evaluation

Hey,

Today we finished our preliminary task. We all contributed towards the making of our short clip, here is the complete task in full:

There're many parts of the clip that we would like to change, for example, we should have filmed it landscape instead of portrait to avoid the black lines that it creates filming that way. This is not a major issue but just makes the clip look more professional and better to watch. We will avoid this when creating our main task by filming it landscape. Secondary we need to be careful with the quality of the footage. We need to make sure that the camera is focused before we start filming and also when we film (unless its part of the shot) we have a steady hand. 

Another Issue with the clip is the voice over. We were happy with the content but just not how it sounds. To explain, the speaking isn't clear enough because of the effects we added to the voice to make it deeper and sound darker. This can easily be avoided when we do our next task by making sure the speaking is as clear as possible and also not add as many effects. 

3 filming techniques that we used:



- A camera shot that we used within our prelim task was a two person shot. We used this shot a lot as we wanted to show the perspective of the two friends and then after show the perspective of the stalker. This would be a good shot to use in our thriller as it will help us portray the relationship of the mum and the dad and present their body language towards each other. This shot was easy to film and worked out well for us and we will definitely be using it in our thriller opening.


- Secondly another shot we used was an over the shoulder shot. This was used to let the audience acknowledge that there is a stalker but not to give the stalkers appearance away just yet. This shot will be good to use in our thriller when the two parents are talking but it will not be used in the same way that it is used in our prelim (to let the audience know about the stalkers presence). This shot was fairly easy to film when the actors where stood/sitting still but when they where moving it took more concentration to focus on what the camera was doing and making sure we aren't just filming someones back and missing the shot completely. This will be something we will have to keep in mind when filming. 

- Lastly we used a 3 person shot. This was to show each character and also to show the danger that the two girls are in and how close the stalker is. We also used a 3 person shot because it was the end of the clip and we were building up the suspense in seeing the stalker. As you can see in the picture to the right, you can not see the stalkers face just yet as he is looking down with his hoodie on. This creates suspense and keeps the audience watching and triggers their sense of wanting to know. We then, of course later see the stalkers face. This camera shot helps with the build up to the reveal. This shot will most likely not be in our thriller because there is not a scene in the opening where there are three people all together in one shot. 

There are many other issues with the clip but those are the main ones that can be easily changed and adapted to suit our opening.


Roles that I took on:
I filmed because I was not in any scenes and I have had experience in filming and editing and i very much enjoy doing so. 
I helped out with the editing as well because I am experienced with iMovie and the others in the group are not. I helped with downloading the clips, stabilising them and editing the volume. 
I wrote the script for Demi to do the voice over and when I put the Voice over into iMovie we didn't like the way it sounded so I deepened Demi's voice and made it slower to give it a deeper and darker feel to it.